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ON VIEW
£' A
EXHIBITION It’s Only Natural: Flora and Fauna in Louisiana Decorative Arts
July 29-November 28, 2015
Boyd Cruise Gallery, 410 Chartres Street
Free
A.	Corinthian capital fragment from the St. Louis Hotel
ca. 1843; cypress wood manufactured in New Orleans 1997.20.6
B.	“The World of Rivers” plate, presented at the Louisiana World Exposition
1983-1984; vitreous china
by Mignon Faget, designer (New Orleans)
gift of John C. Weinmann, 1985.37.8
Outside In
A new exhibition, running in concert with the 2015 New Orleans Antiques Forum, celebrates nature’s influence on the decorative arts.
The natural world has inspired the design of architectural, decorative, and household objects for centuries. Prehistoric people painted antelopes and buffalo on cave walls. Greek architects incorporated acanthus leaves into the design of Corinthian columns supporting the ceilings of temples. Cabinetmakers in the 18th and 19th centuries carved dragon claws, lion paws, deer feet, dolphin heads, and horse hooves into anthropomorphic furniture. In the 20th century, the artists at Newcomb College incised and sculpted flowers and foliage on decorative ceramics.
The decorative arts of Louisiana are wild with natural ornamentation. Household dishes, textiles, and furniture are decorated with painted, woven, and carved flowers of all types. Silver hollowware pieces feature flowers, fruit, and foliate scrolls chased, engraved, and molded into their bodies. Even the frames surrounding family portraits are ripe with fruit, nuts, and flowers.
The upcoming exhibition It’s Only Natural: Flora and Fauna in Louisiana Decorative Arts, running in conjunction with the 2015 New Orleans Antiques Forum, celebrates the use of natural motifs on objects made or used in Louisiana. The pieces on display come exclusively from The Collection’s decorative-arts holdings and include items collected by THNOC founders General L. Kemper and Leila Williams, gifts from founding curator and director Boyd Cruise, new acquisitions, and everything in between.
The earliest objects in the exhibition were made in France.
A 1790s tin-glazed earthenware plate decorated with the “tree of liberty,” a republican symbol adopted during the French Revolution, matches fragments discovered in archaeological digs on Bourbon Street. A porcelain coffee cup and saucer decorated with cornflower blossoms was produced by Jean N. H. Nast in Paris around the turn of the 19th century and belonged to Pierre Clement de Laussat, the French colonial prefect who managed the 1803 Louisiana Purchase land transfers in New Orleans. A pair ofsilver candlesticks made in the early 19th century reflects the Napoleonic interest in Egyptian design: the stems are perched on lion paws and topped by pharaohs, with a crown of lotus leaves overhead. The candlesticks belonged to Pierre de la Ronde, commander of the Louisiana militia in the Battle of New Orleans.